


/ 




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SPEECH 



OF 



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HOK JOHN SHERMAN, OF OHIO, 



OK 



KEPRESENTAira OF SOUTHERN STATES; 







DELIVERED 



IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, FEBRUARY 26, 1866. 



WASHINaTON: 

PRINTED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE OFFICE. 

186G. 



b^L^ 



REPRESENTATION OF SOUTHERN STATES. 



The Senate having under consideration the con- 
eurrent resolution of the House of Representatives 
relative to the representation of certain States — 

Mr. SHERMAN said: _ 

Mr. President: The immediate question 
before the Senate is upon the resolution of 
the House of Representatives, passed on the 
21st instant, declaring that no Senator or 
Representative shall be admitted into either 
branch of Congress from any of the eleven 
States which have been declared to be in in- 
surrection until Congress shall have declared 
such State entitled to such representation. 
This question, together with the reasons stated 
in the resolution for its passage, the cir- 
cumstances under which it is pi-essed in Con- 
gress, and the many pending propositions of a 
kindred character now on our table, induces me 
to follow the example so often set in the Senate, 
and to discuss all these kindred propositions now 
while I have the floor. I shall do so as clearly 
and as briefly as possible, in the order in which 
they will probably present themselves for our 
vote. And first as to this resolution. 

If the meaning of the resolution is that as a 
matter of convenience in the discharge of our 
duties the Senators ^nd Representatives ought 
to act in concert with each other in. legislating 
upon and in discussing ail propositions affect- 
ing the right of States to representation, surely 
it is a reasonable proposition. We have already 
acted in concert at the beginning of this ses- 
sion by creating a joint committee as an organ 
of both bodies to confer with each other and to 
communicate to each House separately their 
deliberations. We have often before recog- 
nized the propriety of acting through joint 
committees on questions of great importance, 
■when the concurrence of both Houses is needed, 
and when a free conference will probably tend 
to produce an agreement. Therefore, if this is 
the purpose of this resolution, it is a very sim- 
ple and plain one, and obviously defensible. 



But, Mr. President, this resolution goes fur- 
ther. It asserts, and it was intended to assert, 
that with Congress, and with Congress alone, 
rests the duty of defining when a State once 
declared to be in insurrection shall be admit- 
ted to representation in this and the other House 
of Congress. This is a proposition of consti- 
tutional law ; and on this point I am glad to say 
that there has been no difference of opinion 
among us until this session of Congress. This 
question has been three times decided in the 
Senate. It has been decided by the unanimous 
report of our Judiciary Committee. It has not 
been controverted in this body until within a 
very few days, or until during the present ses- 
sion of Congress. At the last session a unani- 
mous report was made from the Judiciary Com- 
mittee, composed of some of the ablest lawyers 
in the Senate, in which this doctrine is, in my 
judgment, more clearly and distinctly expressed 
than in the resolution now before us. I can- 
not see why any one who gave his deliberate 
judgment to that proposition can oj^pose this. 
The honorable Senator from Maine read a por- 
tion of this report on Friday, but it will bear 
repetition, and I will now read it: 

"The persons in possession of the local authorities 
in Louisiana having rebelled against the authority 
of the United States, and her inhabitants having been 
declared to be in a state of insurrection in pursuance 
of a law passed by the two Houses of Congress, your 
committee deem it improper for this body to ar'^it 
to seats Senators from Louisiana, till by -ome joint 
action of both Hoxisen there shall be some recognition of 
an existing State government acting in harmony with 
the Government of the United States and recognizing 
its authority." 

If this is law, how can any Senator vote 
against the pending proposition unless it is for 
reasons not involving the merits of that prop- 
osition ? But this is not the only case, for I find 
that this very question was made, and by a vote 
of the Senate was definitely decided, and it was 



made so distinctly that no Senator could have 
voted for the proposition I am now about to ' 
read without understanding its full purport and 
effect. 

It will be remembered that a bill came to the 
Senate, passed by the House of Representatives 
guarantying to the seceded States a rei^ub- 
lican form of government, commonly known as 
the Wade and Davis bill. It was antagonized 
here by various propositions, and among the 
rest by a proposition offered by the honorable 
Senator from Missouri, [Mr. Browx.]- That 
bill contained many sections intended to pro- 
vide a mode by which these eleven States might, 
when the rebellion was suppressed within their 
limits, be restored to their old places in the 
Union. Theproposition offered by Mr. Brown, 
as a substitute for the bill, I will now read ; and 
I invite the attention of Senators to the distinct 
assertion of the very doctrine that is proclaimed 
in this resolution : 

" That when the inhabitants of any State have been 
declared in u state of insurrection against the United 
States by proclamation of the President, by force and 
virtue of the act entitled 'An act to provide for the 
collection of duties on imports, and for other pur- 
poses,' approved July 13, 1861, they shall be, and are 
hereby declared to be, incapable of casting any vote 
for electors of President or Vice President of the Uni- 
ted States, or of electing Senators or Representatives 
in Congress, until said insurrection in said State is 
suppressed or abandoned, and said inhabitants have 
returned to their obedience to the Government of the 
United States" — 

Then mark these worcjs — 

"nor until such return to obedienee shall be declared 
by proclamation of the President, issued by virtue of an 
act of Congress, hereafter to be jiassed, authorizing the 
same." 

This proposition was introduced in antago- 
nism to the proposition then before the Senate, 
as a substitute for it, to cover the whole ground, 
and I am told was framed by our fellow Sen- 
ator now dead. Judge CoUamer. After debate 
it was adopted as a substitute by the close vote 
of 17 yeas to 16 nays. Among the yeas were 
every Democratic member of this Senate and 
some of the Republicans. All the nays were 
Union Senators, friends of the original bill, 
including many classed as radicals. I give the 
vote in full : 

"Yeas — Messrs. Brown, Carlile, Cowan, Davis, 
Poolittle, Grimes, Henderson, Hendricks, Johnson, 
L.aiit K,^ Indiana, McDougall, Powell, Richardson, 
Riddle, Sau''ibury, Trumbull, and Van Winkle— 17. 

" Nats— Messrs, Chandler, Clark, Conness, Hale, 
Harlan, Lane, of Kansas, Morgan, Morrill, Pomeroy, 
Ramsey, Sherman, Sprague, Sumner, Wade, Wilkin- 
son, and Wilson — 16." 

It may be said that these gentlemen voted for 
this proposition for the purpose of defeating a 
more offensive one ; and if the vote rested here 
that would be a I'easonable explanation. But in 
order to point the significance of this vote the 
honorable Senator from Illinois, the chairman 



of the Judiciary Committee, [Mr. Trumbull,]' 
called attention to the importance of the ques- 
tion and said he wanted a definite vote upon 
this proposition by itself. He stated its im- 
portance, the effect of the principle involved, 
and asked for the yeas and nays on the passage 
of the bill as amended, in order, as he said, to 
ascertain the judgment of the Senate upon this 
distinct proposition. The bill then contained 
nothing but what I have read to you, and the 
vote was taken by yeas and nays, and stood as 
follows : 

"Yeas— Messrs. Brown, Chandler, Conness, Doo- 
little, Grimes, Harlan, Harris, Henderson, Johnson, 
Lane of Indiana, Lane of Kansas, McDougal, Mor- 
gan, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Riddle, Sherman, Sprague, 
Sumner, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Wade, 
Wilkinson, and Wilson — 26. 

"Nats — Messrs Davis, Powell, and Saulsbury — 3." 

So that by this deliberate vote, after debate, 
after the attention of the Senate had been called 
to the importance of the proposition by the ju- 
dicial organ of this body, at a time when there 
was no excitement and no party feeling here on 
this proposition, the doctrine we are discussing 
was asserted by an almost unanimous vote of the 
Senate. It seems to me that with this declara- 
tion of the opinion of the Senate before us, made 
when it was not influenced by jiarty feeling or 
party excitement, we ought not to doubt the 
correctness of the pending resolution, not near 
so strong in its tenor or language. It ought 
not to be resisted by any one who thus com- 
mitted the Senate to that proposition against a 
measure that would have organized a system to 
reconstruct the seceding States. 

But, Mr. President, I need not depend upon 
the vote of the Senate or upon the authorities, 
because I think, if you test this proposition by 
the simplest principles of constitutional law 
there can appear no doubt that Congress has 
the sole and exclusive power over this subject. 
The Constitution of the United States gives to 
the President of the United States no legisla- 
tive power except as a part of the law-making 
power. He is an executive officer, with no 
legislative power except that which he exer- 
cises in connection with us. The Constitution , 
of the United States confers upon Congress not 
only the power to raise and support armies, to 
appropriate money therefor, and to provide and 
maintain a navy, but — 

"To make rules for the government and regulation 
of the land and naval forces." 

And among the residuary powers conferred 
upon Congress is that important one — 

"To make all laws which shall be necessary and 
proper for carrying into execution the foregoing pow- 
ers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution 
in the Government of the United States, or in any 
department or officer thereof." 

Therefore, where a power is conferred upon 
the President, and the legislative power is ne- 
cessary in order to carry that power into effect, 



Congress alone possesses the power to arm the 
Executive with the necessary authority to exe- 
cute the Jaws. Upon Congress alone rests all 
the residuary powers ; and therefore it is that 
the power of Congress follows our flag wherever 
it floats. Our flag may go round the world, to 
South Amefica, to Italy, to China ; it may go 
into any-foreign country as it did iu Mexico ; it 
may go iuto the southern States subduing a 
rebellion, and wherever it goes the legislative 
power of Congress goes with it. It regulates 
and governs the Army, and the President has 
nothing to do but to execute the will of Con- 
gress and the Constitution of the United States. 
It seems, therefore, testing it by reason, that 
this power must rest in Congress. The doc- 
trine is very strongly stated by Story, in his 
Commentaries on the Constitution, in very much 
the language I have used ; and he says, in speak- 
ing of the powers of Congress, that the juris- 
diction and jDOwer of the Government of the 
United States follow our flag or our Army into 
a foreign country, and Congress may make rules 
and regulations for the government of the Army 
of the United States in a foreign country as 
well as in our own, and it is the duty of the 
President to execute them. It is true that, in 
the absence of rules and regulations prescribed 
by Congress the President may make such reg- 
ulations as are absolutely necessary for the gov- 
ernment of the Army wherever it is, but it is 
only as a part of his duty to execute the general 
laws. If Congress chooses to step in and pre- 
scribe the mode and manner in which these 
powers shall be exercised, he is bound by his 
oath to observe such rules and regulations. I 
conclude, therefore, that as Congress has de- 
clared eleven States to be in a state of insur- 
rection, as it is necessary now to pass some plan 
or law iiy which these States may be restored 
to their old place in the Union, Congress has 
the undoubted legislative power to prescribe the 
terms, conditions, and tests by which their loy- 
alty and obedience to the law may be adjudged. 

TENDENCY OP THIS RESOLUTION. 

But, Mr. President — and I say it with great 
deference to the committee who reported it — 
I do not believe the bare assertion of this 
power tends to promote the object stated by the 
resolution itself. The object of this resolution 
is stated to be to close agitation upon a question 
which se€ms likely to disturb the action of the 
Government, as well as to quiet the uncertainty 
which is agitating the minds of the people of 
the eleven States which have been declared to 
be in a state of insurrection. If this resolution 
would tend to promote these great objects, I 
would vote for it much more cheerfully than I 
will ; but I regard it as a mere straw in a storm, 
thrown in at an inopportune moment; the mere 
assertion of a naked right which has never yet 
been disputed, and never can be successfully ; 
a mere assertion of a right that we have over 
and over again asserted. The only doubt I 



ever had about the resolution was the wisdom 
of introducing it and passing it under the pre- 
vious question in one House at a moment when 
there was undue or unusual excitement in the 
public mind. My idea is that the true way to 
assert this power is to exercise it, and that it 
was only necessary for Congress to exercise that 
power in order to meet all these complicated 
difficulties. This resolution does not provide 
for the contingencies that have happened. Let 
me state the case. Suppose the two Houses 
of Congress cannot agree uj^on a plan of re- 
construction, as it is very obvious we shall 
have difficulty in doing. Opposition here is 
already developed to the constitutional amend- 
ment as part of the plan agreed upon, in quar- 
ters at least to me unexpected, and it is very 
doubtful whether we can agree by the requisite 
majority upon this leading idea of a change of 
the Constitution." Suppose the two Houses of 
Congress cannot agree with each other, what 
then? Must these eleven States stand in their 
present isolated condition beyond the pale of 
civil law imtil the two Houses can agree upon 
some i:)roposition ? 

Again, suppose that Congress will not agree 
with the President, as actually occurred in the 
passage of the Wade and Davis bill. We sent 
to President Lincoln our plan of reconstruc- 
tion. He declined to approve it. There was S, 
difference between Congress and the President. 
Up to this hour we never have exercised our 
power to regulate the mode and manner of 
bringing these States back into the Union. Sup- 
pose this difference exists Isetween the various 
departments of the law-making power and no 
law should be passed on the subject, is it in- 
tended by this resolution to assert that no rep- 
resentatives from these eleven States shall come 
back here, and that the power of each House to 
judge of the elections, returns, and qualiflca- 
tions of its own members shall not be exercised 
until by force or in some other way we can be 
compelled to agree? Must these States be de- 
prived of all representation here until a forced 
verdict is drawn out of Congress with the assent 
of the President? Not at all. 

I have no doubt of the power of Congress to 
pass any law it can on the- subject, but I know 
very well that if Congress fails to pass a law 
after a reasonable time, either House can and 
will exercise its undoubted power to admit Sen- 
ators and Representatives on the floor of Con- 
gress. If we fail to pass apian of reconstruc- 
tion at the present session of Congress, this 
resolution will not prevent either House of Con- 
gress from hereafter exercising its undoubted 
power to pass upon the claim of any one who 
comes here at this bar demanding a seat as a 
Senator of the United States. Therefore I say 
that the measure proposed does not meet the 
real difficulty in the case. What we want is a 
plan of action by which these States may, upon 
such terms and conditions as are consistent 



6 



with the public safety, come back into this 
Union. 

THE WADE-DAVIS BILL. 

Mr. President, in my judgment the real dif- 
ficulty in this whole matter has been the unfor- 
tunate failure of the executive and legislative 
branches of the Government to agree upon a 
plan of reconstruction. If at the last session 
we had provided a law, reasonable in itself, 
proper in its provisions, by which these States 
might have been guided in their efforts to come 
back into the Union, that would have been an 
end of this controversy ; but unfortunately (and 
I am not here either to arraign the living or the 
dead) there was a failure to agree. Earlier in 
this war, during the Thirty-Seventh Congress, 
a gentleman now in his grave, and whose eulogy 
was so fitly pronounced the other day in the 
House of Representatives by his colleague here, 
Henry Winter Davis, prepared a bill to meet 
this exigency. He was not then a member of 
Congress. He brought that bill to me. It was 
a bill to guaranty to each State a republican 
form of government. The provisions of the 
bill poipted out a plan by which these States, 
then declared by Congress to be in a state of 
insurrection, might, when that insurrection was 
subdued or abandoned, come back freely and 
voluntarily into the Union. It provided for rep- 
resentation ; it provided for the election of a 
convention and a Legislature, and the election 
of Senators and members of Congress. It was 
a complete guarantee to the people within the 
States upon certain gonditions to come back 
into the Union. The provisions and tests by 
which to judge when the state of insurrection 
had ceased and determined were prescribed. 
I introduced that bill here at the request of Mr. 
Davis. It was referred to the Judiciary Com- 
mittee. It was not acted upon by them. I 
suppose they thought it premature. Afterward 
Mr. Davis came into the Thirty-Eighth Congress 
as a member of the House of Representatives. 
Among the first acts performed by him after 
taking his seat was the introduction of this same 
bill, framed by him and introduced by me into 
the Senate, in the House of Representatives. 
It was introduced by him on the 15th Decem- 
ber, 18G3. It was debated in the House of 
Representatives and passed by a very decided 
vote, and it was sent to the Senate. Its his- 
tory I have already in part stated. It was re- 
pori.wJ to the Senate favorably ; but in place 
of it was substituted the proposition I have 
already read, offered by the Senator from Mis- 
souri, which was adopted in the Senate. It 
was sent back to the House ; a committee of 
conference was appointed, and the result was 
the reporting to the Senate and the House of 
what was called the Wade and Davis bill. 
That bill was debated and finally passed upon 
tiie report of the committee of conference. It 
went to the President; he did not approve it. 
I have before me a proclamation issued by the 



President on the 8th of July, 1864, in which it 
is recited : 

" Wher.-as at the late session Congress passed a bill 
to guara! ty to certain States, whose governments 
have been usurped or overthrown, a republican form 
ofgorernmont," a copy ofwhich is hereunto annexed; 
and whereas the said bill was presented to the Pres- 
ident of the United States for his approval less than 
one hour before the sine die adjournment of said ses- 
sion, and was not signed by him; and whereas the 
said bill contains, among other things, a plan for re- 
storing the States in rebellion to their proper practi- 
cal relation in the Union, which plan expresses the 
sense of Congress upon that subject, and which plas 
it is now thought fit to lay before the people for their 
consideration : 

" Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of 
the United States, do proclaim, declare, and make 
known, that while I am (as I was in December last, 
when by proclamation I propounded apian for resto- 
ration) unprepared, by a formal approval of this bill, 
to be inflexibly committed to any single plan of res- 
toration; and while I am also unprepared to declare 
that the free State constitutions and governments 
already adopted and installed in Arkansas and Lou- 
isiana shall be set aside and held for naught, thereby 
repelling and discouraging the loyal citizens who 
have set up the same as to further effort, or to de- 
clare a constitutional competency in Congress to 
abolish slavery in States, but am at the sauie time 
sincerely hoping and expecting that a constitutional 
amendment abolishing slavery throughout the nation 
may be adopted." 

, He then goes on and gives his reasons for 
not approving this plan ; nor does he entirely 
disapprove of it, but he said it was one of 
numerous plans which might be adopted. 

Mr. SUMNER. Will the Senator allow me 
to interrupt him there? I will state that it so 
happened that I had an interview with the late 
President Lincoln immediately after the pub- 
lication of that paper, and it was the subject 
of vei-y minute and protracted conversation, in 
the course of which, after discussing it in de- 
tail, he expressed to me his regret that he had 
not accepted the bill. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. President, I think 
every patriotic citizen of the United States will 
express his regret, not so much that the Presi- 
dent did not approve that bill, because I will 
not condemn the President for declining to 
sign it, but that Congress in connection with 
the President did not agree upon some plan of 
reconstruction by which these States might 
have been guided, so that when the rebellion 
was put down they might see in the form of 
law some guide to lead them in the difficult 
road to restoration. Who does not now see 
that any law upon the subject would have 
been better than the absence of all law? You 
must remember that whatever fault there is in 
this matter was in the law-making power of 
Congress and the President combined. This 
controversy was all over before the presiden- 
tial election, and I think before the nomina- 
tion of Andrew Johnson. And in presenting 



these facts I am bound here to say that the 
paper issued by my colleague and Mr. Divis 
in reply to the President's proclamation, did 
not meet the sanction of the people, but was 
generally condemned as introducing an un- 
pleasant controvei'sy into the presidential can- 
vass. - 

Mr. LANE, of Kansas. Will the Senator 
yield to me for a moment? I wish to propound 
a question about the Wade and Davis bill. Did 
not that bill provide for restricting the right of 
suffrage in the seceded States to the whites? 

Mr. SHERMAN. It did. I will come to 
that after awhile, and will present that point 
distinctly. I have given you now, Mr. Presi- 
dent, the history of that bill. I repeat that the 
declaration of my colleague was not approved 
by the people. He himself, perhaps, will agree 
with me that at that time it was generally re- 
garded that the issue made by him before the 
people was unfortunate, because we were then 
in the midst of a presidential campaign. Cer- 
t-ain it is that the public voice, so far as it could 
be gathered from the newspapers and from 
speeches and from various modes of express- 
ing public opinion, was against the action of 
these two gentlemen, who, as chairmen of the 
respective committees of the two bodies, felt it 
their duty to defend this bill. 

Thus, by the disagreement which commenced 
two years ago between Congress and the Pres- 
ident, there was left no law upon the statute- 
book to guide either the President or the people 
of the southern States in their effort to get back 
to the embraces of the old Union. I regard 
that as a great misfortune. 

PRESIDENT JOHNSON'3 PLAN. 

Now, I will ask Senators this plain question, 
whether we have a right now, having failed to 
do our constitutional duty, to arraign Andrew 
Johnson for following out a plan which in his 
judgment he deemed the best, and especially 
when that plan was the plan adopted by Mr. 
•Lincoln, and which at least had the apparent 
ratification of the people of the United States 
in the election of Lincoln and Johnson. 

After this effort made by Congress to provide 
a plan of reconstruction, there was no effort 
made subsequently, no bill was introduced on 
the subject at the last session of Congress, no 
further effort was made to harmonize the con- 
flicting views of the President and Congress. 
One whole session intervened after this veto, 
as I may call it, of President Lincoln, and no 
effort was made by Congress to reconcile this 
conflict of views ; and when President Johnson 
came suddenly, by the hand of an assassin, into 
the presidential chair, what did he have before 
him to guide his steps? The forces of the re- 
bellion had been subdued ; all physical resist- 
ance was soon after subdued ; the armies of 
Lee and Johnston and all the other armies of 
the rebels had been overwhelmed, and theSouth 
lay at our power. Who doubts, theu, that if ' 



there had been a law upon the statute-book by 
which the people of the southern States could 
have been, guided in their effort to come back 
into the Union, they would have cheerfully fol- 
lowed it, although the conditions had been 
hard ? 

In the absence of law, I ask you whether 
President Lincoln and President Johnson did 
not do substantially right when they adopted a 
plan of their own and endeavored to carry it 
into execution ? Although we may now find fault 
with the terms and conditions that were im- 
posed by them upon the southern States, yet 
we must remember that the source of all power 
in this country, the people of the United States, 
in the election of these two men substantially 
sanctioned the plan of Mr. Lincoln. Why, sir, 
at the very time that Andrew Johnson was nom- 
inated for the Vice Presidency he was in Ten- 
nessee as military governor, executing the very 
plan that he subsequently attempted to carry 
out, and he was elected Vice President of the 
United States when he was in the practical 
execution of that plan. And now, before we 
examine the steps taken by the President, and 
fairly weigh the wisdom of his policy, we musk 
determine the legal status of the seceding States. 

STATES IN INSURRECTION. 

What was the condition of these States ? I 
shall not waste much time upon this point, 
because mere theoretical ideas never appear to 
me to have much force when we are legislating 
on practical matters. They have been declared 
to be States in insurrection, but States still. 
The very resolution we have before us repeats 
three times that they are States now. They are 
referred to as States not entitled to representa- 
tion. They are stated to be, 

"The eleven States which have beon doolarod to ba 
in insurrection." 

And again : 

"No Senator or Representative shall bo admitted 
into either branch of Congress from any of said States 
until Congress shall have declared such State entitled 
to such representation." 

I could show very many acts of Congress in 
which they are referred to as States, but States 
in insurrection. And there is no difference 
between Congress and the President as to the 
present condition of these States. The execu- 
tive branch of the Government in all its de- 
partments now treats them as States in rebel- 
lion or in insurrection. Tennessee is the only 
one of these States that has been proclaimed by 
the President to be out of insurrection. He ia 
now exercising power in all these States as 
States in insurrection. He is suspending news- 
papers, exercising arbitrary power, suspending 
the writ of habeas corpus, treating them yet as 
States in insurrection ; and in this view, as T 
have stated, Congress concurs. 

Now, what is the legal result of a State being 
in insurrection? It was sufiSciently declared in 



8 



the proposition I have already read, offered by 
the Senator from Missouri. They have no right 
while they are in insurrection to elect electors 
to the Electoral College ; they have no right to 
elect Senators and Representatives. In other 
words, they lose all those powers, rights, and 
privileges conferred upon them by the Consti- 
tution of the United States. Having taken up 
arms against the United States, they by that 
act lose their constitutional powers within the 
United vStates to govern and control our coun- 
cils. They cannot engage in the election of a 
President, or in the election of Senators or 
' members of Congress ; but they are still States, 
and have been so regarded bj^ every branch and 
every department of this Government. They 
are States in insurrection, whose rights under 
the Constitution are suspended until they cease 
to be in insurrection. When that period arrives 
is a question, in my judgment, which must be 
determined by Congress, and not by the Pres- 
ident, for the reason I have already stated ; but 
it is clear that the first duty of Congress, under 
these circumstances, is to provide a mode and 
manner by which the condition of the States 
may be tested, and they may come back, one 
by one, each upon its own merits, upon com- 
plying with such conditions as the public safety 
demands. 

WHAT THE PRESIDENT DID. 

1 propose now to recall, very briefly, the steps 
adoj^ted by President Johnson in his plan of 
reconstruction. I do this for the purpose of 
presenting to the Senate, in a condensed view, 
the precise plan of reconstruction adopted by 
him, so that we may see at a single glance the 
present condition of these eleven States. V/hen 
Mr. Johnson came into power he found the 
rebellion substantially subdued. What did he 
do ? His first act was to retain in his confi- 
dence and in his councils every member of the 
Cabinet of Abraham Lincoln, and so far as we 
know every measure adopted by Andrew John- 
son has had the approval and sanction of that 
Cabinet. If there is any doubt upon any meas- 
ure it is upon the recent veto message ; but up 
to and including that message, so far as we 
know — and in matters of this kind we cannot 
rely upon street rumors — Andrew Johnson's 
plan has met the approval of the Cabinet of 
Abraham Lincoln. He has executed every 
law passed by Congress upon every subject 
whatever, and especially has he executed the 
Freedmen's Bui'eaubill. He placed at the head 
of that bureau General Howard, one of the most 
fit and worthy men in the United States, to 
conduct the delicate aftairs of that bureau, and 
General Howard has never asked him for any 
single act of authority, any single power that 
was not freely granted by President Johnson. 
The Freedmen's Bureau is also vmderthe con- 
trol of Edwin M. Stanton. Every act passed 
by Congress in any way bearing on this rebel- 
lion the President has fairly and promptly ex- 



ecuted. If there is any that he has failed to 
execute I should thank any Senator to name it 
to me for I do not now recall it. Not only that, 
but he adopted the policy of President Lincoln 
in hcec verba., as I shall show hereafter in 
examining his proclamations, and he extended 
and made more severe, as you may say, the pol- 
icy adopted by Mr. Lincoln. Not only that, 
but in carrying out his plans of reconstruction, 
he adopted all the main features of the only bill 
passed by Congress — the Wade and Davis bill. 
I have the bill before me, but I have not time 
to go into its details. My colleague, who re- 
members the features of that bill, will know 
that the general plan adopted by President J ohn- 
son is the only plan that was ever adopted by 
Congress. Let us look into President John- 
son's plan a little more and see what it was. 
His first proclamation was in reference to Vir- 
ginia. In this proclamation, dated Executive 
Chamber, May t), 1865, he provided: 

"First. That all acts and proceedings of the politi- 
cal, military, and civil organizations which have been 
in a state of insurrection and rebellion within the 
State of Virginia against the authority and laws of 
the United States, and of which Jetferson Davis, John 
Letcher, and William Smith were late the respective 
chiefs, are declared null and void." 

With a single stroke he swept away the whole 
superstructure of the rebellion. Then he pro- 
vides for the execution of all the powers of the 
national Government within the rebel territory, 
extending there our tax laws. Perhaps Pres- 
ident Johnson ought to have thought a little 
about these proclamations when he disputed 
the power of Congress to tax the peopl'e of the 
southern States. He was the first to extend 
over those States the tax laws of the United 
States, and appoint assessors and collectors of 
internal revenue and collectors of customs in 
the various jDorts. Then he provides : 

" Ninth. That to carry into effect the guarantee of 
the Federal Constitution of a republican form of gov- 
ernment, and afford the advantage and security of 
domestic laws, as well as to complete the reestablish- 
mentof the authorityof the laws of the United States, 
and the full and complete restoration of peace within 
the limits aforesaid, Francis H. Peirpoint, Governor 
of the State of Virginia, will be aided by the Federal 
Government, so far as may be necessary, in the law- 
ful measures which ho may take for the extension 
and administration of the State government through- 
out the geographical limits of said State." 

That was the first element of his j^lan of re- 
construction. The next was the amnesty proc- 
lamation, issued on the 29th of May following. 
In this proclamation he recites the jDrevious 
proclamation of President Lincoln, and then 
goes on: 

"To the end, therefore, that the authority of the 
Government of the United States may be restored, 
and that peace, order, and freedom may be estab- 
lished, I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United 
States, do proclaim and declare that I hereby grant 
to all persons who have directly or indirectly par- 



ticipatedin the existing rebellion, except as hereinafter 
excepted, amnesty and pardon, with restoration of all 
rights of property, except as to slaves, and except in 
cases where legal proceedings, under the laws of the 
United States providing for the confiscation of prop- 
erty of persons engaged in rebellion, have been in- 
stituted," &c. 

And then in the oath of amnesty he provides 
that any person claiming the benefit of the 
amnesty should swear that he will "abide by 
and faitlifully support all laws and proclama- 
tions which have been made during the exist- 
ing rebellion with reference to the emancipa- 
tion of slaves." Then he goes on and excepts 
from the operation of this amnesty some four- 
teen classes of persons, more than quadrupling 
the exceptions of the previous proclamation of 
Mr. Lincoln ; so that if there was any depart- 
ure in this connection from the policy adopted 
by Mr. Lincoln, it was a departure against the 
rebels, and especially against those wealthy 
rebels who gave life and soul and power to the 
rebellion. 

CONDITIONS IMPOSED BY HIM. 

These were the agencies and organs under 
which the plan of reconstruction was to go on. 
Now I ask you, what conditions were imposed 
on these people? First, the adoption of the 
constitutional amendment. He was not willing 
to leave the matter to their amnesty oath or to 
the proclamation of President Lincoln, but he 
demanded of them the incorporation in their 
State constitutions of a prohibition of slavery, 
and the adoption by their Legislatures of the 
constitutional amendment so as to secure beyond 
peradventure the abolition of slavery forever 
and ever throughout the United States. This 
he required in every order issued to the South, 
and demanded it as a first and preliminaj-y con- 
dition to any effort toward reconstruction. Next, 
he demanded a repudiation of the rebel debt, 
and a guarantee put into the constitutions of the 
respective States that they never would under 
any circumstances pay any portion of the rebel 
debt. Next, he secured the enforcement of the 
test oath so that every officer in the southern 
States under the act of Congress was compelled 
to take that oath ; or if he could not find officers 
there to do it, he sent officers from the northern 
States to do it, so that this law, the most objec- 
tionable of any to the southern people was en- 
forced in all instances at the South. It is true 
he appointed some provisional governors who 
could nottakethe test oath ; but why? Because 
it was held that these provisional governors 
were not oflicers under the law. They were not 
officers whose commission was provided for by 
law ; they were simply executive agents for the 
time being to carry into execution the plan of 
reconstruction ; andhe felt that if he could use 
any of these people in the southern States for 
the purpose of performing this temporary duty 
he had a right to do it. It was not prohibited 
by any law. The test oath only applied to offi- 



cers of the United States who were provided for 
by law. 

Next, he enforced in every case full and 
ample protection to the freedmen of the south- 
ern States. As I said before, no case was ever 
brought to his knowledge, so far as I can gather, 
in which he did not do full and substantial jus- 
tice. 

Mr. MORRILL. Allow me to ask the Sen- 
ator a question. Does he mean to say that the 
President required it as a condition of resto- 
ration that they should give protection to the 
freedmen of the' South? 

Mr. SHERMAN. I am merely speaking of 
what the President did, and I say that so far 
as I know he exercised and enforced every 
power of the Government to protect the freed- 
men of the southern States without exception. 
As a matter of course he did not require it as 
a condition to be inserted in their constitutions. 

PARDONS. 

I^t Now, what are the objections to this policy? 
The first objection, that I have heard made 
most commonly, and which I have made my- 
self, is, that the President wag toQ liberal in 
exercising the pardoning power. But when 
we remember the fact that there were more 
than five times as many included in his excep- 
tions as were included in the exceptions to the 
proclamation of Mr. Lincoln, and that the num- 
ber of pardons in comparison with the whole 
number of persons excepted is substantially 
insignificant, and that we cannot know all the 
circumstances which surrounded every particu- 
lar case of pardon, it is hardly fair for us to 
arraign the President of the United States. We 
can limit his power to pardon in these cases. 
The President of the United States has no 
power to pardon under the Constitution of the 
United States in cases like this. That power 
is derived from the amnesty law which we 
passed at an early period of the war. The 
constitutional power to pardon given to him by 
that instrument extends only to cases where 
there had been a legal accusation by indictment 
or affidavit, or to cases whSre a man had been 
tried and convicted of a crime. That is the 
kind of pardon contemplated by the Constitu- 
tion, but the authority which we gave him by 
law to extend pardon and amnesty to the rebels 
is as broad as the insurrection itself We con- 
ferred upon the President of the United States 
the unlimited power df amnesty, and he has 
exercised that power only to a very moderate 
degree. 

SUFFRAGE WITHOUT DISTINCTION OF COLOR. 

But the princii^al objection that has been 
made to his policy is that he did not extend his 
invitation to all the loyal men of the southern 
States, including the colored as well as the 
white people. If I were now required to state 
the leading objection made to the policy of the 
President in this particular, I should use the 



1-0 



language of an eminent statesman, and say that 
when the President found before him an open 
field, with no law of Congress to imjiede him, 
with the power to dictate a policy in the South, 
to impose conditions on it, he ought to have 
ad.dressed his proclamation to every loyal man 
above the age of twenty-one years. That would 
be the plan of the Senator from Massachusetts. 

Mr. SUMNER. Every loyal man. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I mean every loyal man 
of sound mind. Now, let us- look at that ques- 
tion. In every one of the eleven seceded States, 
before the rebellion, the negro was excluded 
from the right of voting by their laws. It is 
true the Senator from Massachusetts would say 
these are all swept away. Admit that, but in 
a majority of the northern States to this hour 
there is a denial of the right of suffrage to the 
colored population. In Ohio, Pennsvlvania, 
and New York that right is limited, and these 
three States contain one third of the people of 
the United States. In a large majority of the 
States, including the most populous, negro suf-« 
frage is prohibited. And yet you ask President 
Johnson, by a simple mandatory proclamation 
or military order, to confer the franchise on a 
class of people who are not only prohibited 
from voting in the eleven southern States, but 
in a majority of the northern States, and indeed 
I think in all the States except six. 

Further, it cannot be denied that the preju- 
dice of the Army of the United States, who 
were called upon to enforce this proclamation 
within these States, was against negro suf- 
frage. Whether that prejudice is wise or un- 
wise, blinded or aided by the light of reason, I 
shall not say. I never myself could see any 
reason why, because a man was black, he 
should not vote ; and yet. in making laws, as 
the President was then doing, foj the govern- 
ment of the community, you must regard the 
prejudices, not only of the people among whom 
the laws are to be executed, but the prejudices 
of the Army and the people who are to execute 
those laws, and no man can doubt but what at 
that time there was a strong and powerful pre- 
judice in the Arm^ and among all classes of 
citizens against extending the right of suffrage 
to negroes, especially down in the far South, 
where the great body of the slaves were in 
abject ignorance. 

But that is not all, Mr. President. The 
President of the United States was of the 
opinion that he had no power to extend the 
elective franchise to them, and therefore, in 
judging of his plan of reconstruction, we must 
give him at least a reasonable credit for hon- 
esty of purpose. In his message he tells you 
that this was the difficult subject which met him 
in the way, and he gives you frankly the rea- 
sons which induced liim to exclude the colored 
population from the right to vote. He says : 

"The relations of the General Government toward 
the four million inhabitants whom the war has called 



into freedom have engaged my most serious consid- 
eration. On the propriety of attempting to make the 
freedmcn electors by the proclamation of the Exec- 
utive, I took for my counsel the Constitution itself, 
the interpretations of that instrument by its authors 
and their contemporaries, and recent legislation by 
Congress. When, at the first movement toward 
independence, the Congress of the United States in- 
structed the several States to institute governments 
of their own, they left each State to decide for itself 
the conditions for the enjoyment of the elective 
franchise." 

After some further discussion he goes on to 
say: 

" So fixed was this reservation of power in the hab- 
its of the people, and so unquestioned has been the 
interpretation of the Constitution, that during the 
civil war the late President never harbored the pur- 
pose, certainly never avowed the purpose, of disre- 
garding it; and in the acts of Congress during that 
period, nothing can be found which, during the con- 
tinuance of hostilities, much less after their close, 
would have sanctioned any departure by the Execu- 
tive from a policy which has so uniformly obtained. 

"Moreover, a concession of the elective franchise 
to the freedmen by act of the President of the United 
States must have been extended to all colored men, 
wherever found, and so must have established a 
change of suffrage in the northern, middle, and west- 
ern States not less than in the southern and south- 
western. Such an act would have created a new class 
of voters, and would have been an assumption of 
power by the President which nothing in the Con- 
stitution or laws of the United States would have 
warranted." 

And that is not all. We complain here that 
the President has not exercised his power to 
extend to freedmen the right of suffrage when 
Congress never has done it. We have absolute 
authority over this District, and until this ses- 
sion the proposition was not seriously mooted 
to extend the suffrage to the colored population. 
Here, better than anywhere else in the Union, 
they are fitted and entitled to suffrage, and yet 
we never, in our legislative power for this Dis- 
trict, where we have absolute power, complied 
with that condition which has been asked of the 
President of the United States. It is complained 
that he did not extend the franchise to four mil- 
lions in the southern States who are admitted to 
be ignorant, having been slaves for life, who 
are not prepared for liberty in its broadest and 
fullest sense, who have yet to be educated for 
the enjoj'raentof all the rights of freemen, when 
we ourselves never have been willing to this 
moment to confer the elective franchise upon 
the intelligent colored population of this Dis- 
trict. 

So I think we have never conferred the right 
to vote upon negroes in the Territories. My 
colleague will know whether we have or not. 
We never have. Here we have Territories 
where we have the power to mold the incipient 
form and ideas, and where our power is abso- 
lute, and yet Congress has never prescribed as 
a condition to their organization as Territories 



11 



and to their admission as States the right of 
negroes to vote. 

And this is not all. In the only plan Con- 
gress has ever proposed for the reconstruction 
of the southern States, the Wade and Davis bill 
to which I have referred so often, Coftgress did 
not and would not make negro suffrage a part 
of their plan. The effort was made to do so, 
and it .was abandoned. By that bill the suf- 
frage was conferred only upon white male loyal 
citizens. And in the plan adopted by the Presi- 
dent he adopted in this respect the very same 
conditions for suffrage prescribed by Congress. 
'Now, have we, as candid and honorable men, 
the right to complain of the President because 
he declined to extend suffrage to this most igno- 
rant freed population when we have refused or 
neglected to extend it to them or lo the negroes 
of this District and to the colored men who may 
go into the Territories ? No, sir ; whatever may 
be our opinion of the theory or right of every 
man to vote — and I do not dispute or contest 
with honoi'able Senators upon that point — I say 
with the President, that to ask of him to extend 
to four millions of these people the right of suf- 
frage when we have not the courage to extend 
it to those within our control, when our States, 
represented by us here on this floor have re- 
fused to do it, is to make of him an unreason- 
able demand, in which the people of the United 
States will not sustain Congress. 

What then was done by the President? He 
fixed the qualiiicatjons of voters by several 
proclamations addressed to different States. 
Here is the qualification fixed in his procla- 
mation in regard to North Carolina. He directs 
the provisional governor to convene "a con- 
vention composed of delegates to be chosen by 
that portion of the people of said State who are 
loyal to the United States, and no others." He 
confined it to the loyal population, and then 

went on : 

/ 

" Provided, That in any election that may be here- 
after held for choosing delegates to any State con- 
vention, as aforesaid, no person shall be qualified as 
an elector or shall be eligible as a member of such 
convention unless he shall have previously taken and 
subscribed to the oath of amnesty, as set forth in the 
President's proclamation of May 29, 1865, and is a 
voter qualified as prescribed by the constitution and 
laws of the State of North Carolina, in force imme- 
diately before the 20th day of May, A. D. 18G1, the 
date of the so-called ordinance of secession." 

Therefore he confined the right to vote to 
loyal people who had taken the oath prescribed 
by him, an oath which required them to re- 
nounce all allegiance to the rebel authorities 
and to obey and abide by and support all laws 
and proclamations abolishing slavery, and no 
others are allowed to vote under this jjrocla- 
mation ; and tlien he adds : 

" And none shall be allowed to vote who could not 
vote under the law as it stood before the rebellion 
commenced." 



My honorable friend from Massachusetts, I 
know, would have desired that that last clause 
was omitted ; perhaps many others around me 
would have preferred it ; but I have already said 
sufficient upon that point. He confined the 
right of voting to the loyal men who were enti- 
tled to 'vote under the laws of that State before 
the rebellion, and he denied his right in the 
absence of law to confer upon the negro pop- 
ulation of North Carolina the suffrage, espe- 
cially when Congress and the people of the 
southern States and the people of the northern 
States have never yet shown their disposition to 
extend the right of franchise within their own 
limits. I say, whatever I may think about it 
as a question of ethics, or as to the right, nat- 
ural or artificial, political or civil, of the negro 
to vote, yet to demand of the President of the 
United States, under these circumstances, more 
than he actually did, it seems to me is making 
an unreasonable demand. 

THE PRESIDENT AND THE FREED PEOPLE. 

That he had no unkind feelings to the negroes 
of the southern States is shown by many things. 
I have here a Life which is made up mainly of 
extracts from his SiDceches, and I could read 
you expressions over and over again of kindli- 
ness and friendsliip during the last summer to 
this negro population. It is true, you cannot 
expect Andrew Johnson, whose whole life has 
been a struggle, who was born in a slave State, 
who was reared in a slave State, who owned 
slaves, you cannot expect him whom •you have 
elected President of the United States to forget 
and renounce all the prejudices of a lifetime. 
You cannot expect him to stand on the high and 
lofty pedestal of men who have contemplated 
this subject at a distance and now proclaim laws 
that are right within the light of their reason. 
You must take the man with all the circum- 
stances that surround him ; and I say, taking 
him in that light, he has shown, in his various 
speeches before he sent his message here, a 
kindly feeling to the negro population of the 
southern States. I would refer to one or two 
of those simply to show the general tendency 
of his feelings. On the 10th of October last 
he made a speech to some colored regiments 
who called to pay their respects to him at the 
Executive Mansion, in which he said to them : 

"You have been engaged in the effort to sustain 
your country in the past, but the future is more im- 
portant to you than the period in which you have just 
been engaged. One great question has been settled 
in this Government, and that is the question of sla- 
very. The institution of slavery made war against 
the United States, and the United States has lifted 
its strong arm in vindication of the Government and 
of free government, and on lifting that arm and ap- 
pealing to the God of battles, it has been decided that 
the institution of slavery must go down." 

Then he follows with kind expressions, hop- 
ing for their welfare and future prosperity. 
Again, in his conversation with Mr. Stearns, of 



12 



Massachusetts, an authentic report of which 
was given under the sanction of the President : 

" You could not have broaclied the subject of equal 
suffrage at the North seven years ago ; and we must 
remember that the changes at the South have been 
more rapid, and that they have been obliged to ac- 
cept more unpalatable truth than the North has. 
We must give them time to digest a part ; for we can- 
not expect such large affairs will be comprehended 
and digested at once. We must give them time to 
understand theirnew position. 

"I have nothing to conceal in these matters, and 
have no desire or willingness to take indirect courses 
to obtain what we want. 

"Our Government is a grand and lofty structure; in 
searching for its foundation we find it rests on the 
broad basis of popular rights. The elective franchise 
is not a natural right, but a political right. I am op- 
posed to giving the States too much power, and also 
to a great consolidation of power in the central Gov- 
ernment. 

"If I interfered with the vote in the rebel States, 
to dictate that the negroes shall vote, I might do the 
same thing for my own purposes in Pennsylvania. 
Our only safety lies in allowing each State to control 
the right of voting by its own laws, and we have the 
power to control the rebel States if they go wrong. 
If they rebel, we have the Army and can control them 
by it, and if necessary by legislation also. If theGen- 
eral Government controls the right to vote in the 
States, it may establish such rules as will restrict the 
vote to a small number of persons and thus create a 
central despotism. 

"My position here is different from what it would 
be if I was in Tennessee. There I should try to intro- 
duce negro suffrage gradually; first, those who had 
served in t&e Army, those who could read and write, 
and perhaps a property qualification for others, say 
two hundred or two hundred and fifty dollars. 

"It will not do to let the negroes have universal 
suffragenow, it would breed a war of races." 

Such were the opinions of Andrew .Tohnson 
expressed then, in which he showed that he was 
willing to meet the question of suffrage to the 
negro population, but he desired to do it grad- 
ually, and not, as he conceived, by a usurpation 
of power on his part. It is also shown by the 
evidence introduced the other day by the hon- 
orable Senator from Illinois, that the Freed- 
men's Bureau, right under the eye of Andrew 
Johnson, in Nashville, Tennessee, where he 
knew all that was going on, had organized vast 
systems for the education of southern negroes. 
AH the plans of General Howard for the edu- 
cation of the freedmen of the South, under 
which seventy thousand negroes are now being 
educated by the national Government ; all these 
plans, so far as we know, have met the sanction 
and approval of Andrew Johnson. It seems 
to me, therefore, he has evinced no undue 
hatred or jealousy of the colored population of 
the soixthern States, but that he is willing grad- 
ually to extend to them the right of suffrage. 
In the mean time, as he tells us in the late veto 
message, he strongly desires to protect them in 
the enjoyment of all their natural rights. Now, 
I say again, to require impossibilities of the 



President of the United States, to make any 
undue demands or exactions of him, will not, 
in my judgment, be wise. 

president's speech on TWENT-T-SECOND FEBRUARY. 

I conclude, therefore, this branch of what I 
have to sa",' by this general observation : that up 
to and including the recent veto message of the 
President of the United States there had been 
no act of Andrew Johnson which in my judg- 
ment was inconsistent with the high obligations 
he owed to the great Union party of the United 
States. I would to God that I could end here ; 
but some things that have transpired since, my 
duty to myself and my State — a duty from which 
I shall not shrink whether it meets the enmity 
of friends or opponents — compel me now to 
speak upon some matters in connection with the 
President of the United States which I deeply 
regret. And first of all and most prominent, as 
being that which now stands in the public eye, 
I do most deeply regret his speech of the 22d of 
February. I think there is no true friend of 
Andrew Johnson who would not be willing to 
wipe out that speech from the pages of history. 
It is impossible to conceive a more humiliating 
spectacle than the President of the United States 
invoking the wild passions of a mob around 
him with the utterance of such sentiments as 
he uttered on that day. Whether he be Presi- 
dent or priest, I care not; I must express my 
deep and hearty regret and condemnation of 
some passages of that speech. The honorable 
Senator from Maine the other day read one 
paragraph in which he arraigns Congress for 
organizing a central despotism. No charge 
could be more unfounded. We, in pursuance 
of a time-honored custom in Congress of gather- 
ing through our committees the information that 
is necessary td'enable us to act upon the great 
questions brought before us, chose to appoint 
a joint committee. 1 suppose the President has 
taken offense at the fact that this committee 
was organized on*the day before his message 
was sent in, under circumstances, as he thought, 
of heat, and I have no doubt that much of what 
was said by the President of the United States 
is but the exhibition of temper and passion 
against what he regarded as unjust insults and 
accusations, but nevertheless no true friend of 
his will justify him in this arraignment of Con- 
gress. 

I must confess that I have not seen anything 
in the conduct of the committee of fifteen in 
their reports to the two Houses of Congress to 
justify it. Individual members of that com- 
mittee or individual members of Congress and 
citizens of the United States may have criticised 
with undue severity some of the acts of the Pres- 
ident; but every man who holds such a position 
must expect manly criticism. The people will 
not stop to choose terms in speaking of those in 
power. He must .expect that. It is a part of 
the penalty of his greatness. He must not 
therefore return accusation with accusation. I 



13 



therefore say that the accusation made by the 
President of the United States against the action 
of Congress thus far has Ix^en unjust and un- 
founded. I speak with no feeling on this sub- 
ject. The other day I objected to the discussion 
being commenced for fear that irritable remarks 
might be thrown back from Congress to the 
President. I do not desire to see it done, but 
I say to you now as the result of my deliberate 
reflection — and I know every true friend of the 
President will say I am right in this — I must 
express deep and heartfelt regret that he felt 
himself called upon to address that crowded 
and seething mass on the 22d of February. Bet- 
ter far, if, when the citizens of the United States 
called upon him, he had paid the respectful com- 
pliment of thanks, instead of speaking to them 
in the manner he did, assailing independent 
branches of the Government. Every man, I 
think, must regret this paragraph : 

" I fought traitors and treason in the South. I op- 
posed the Davises, the Toombses, theSlidells, and a 
long list of others, which you can readily fill without 
my repeating the names. Now, when I turn round 
and at the other end of the lino find men, I care not 
by what name you call them, who still stand opposed 
to the restoration of the Union of these States, I am 
free to say to you that I am still in the field." 

I will say that I read from a report made by 
the gentleman'who reports for us, and which 
report modifies very much the language of one 
report that I have seen in one of the city papers ; 
but as this report is an official one. prepared 
by the gentleman who reports our proceedings, 
I prefer to take this. 

Mr. HOWARD. What paper is it in? 

Mr. SHERMAN. The Philadelphia In- 
quirer. The'President went on to say: 

"I am called upon to name three at the other end 
of the line; I am talking to my friends and fellow- 
citizens, who are interested with me in this Govern- 
ment, and I presume I am free to mention to you the 
names of those whom I look upon as being opposed 
to the fundamental principles of this Government, 
and who are laboring to pervert and destroy it. 

"Voices. 'Name them 1' 'Who are they?' 

"The President. You ask me who they are. I 
say Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania is one; I say 
Mr. Sumner of the Senate is another; and Wendell 
Phillips is another." 

This is extraordinary. The President of the 
United States is thoroughly combative in- his 
disposition ; he has been fighting all the days 
of his life ; but it seems to me he ought to 
waive this disposition now, and remember the 
manner in which his lamented predecessor, 
Abraham Lincoln, received the jeers and blows 
of friends and foes. His easy good nature was 
a soft cushion against which everything which 
was offensive feu dead. His words were always 
kindly and genial to friend or foe. That is not 
the character of Mr. Johnson. It is one of the 
peculiarities of his character that he has not 
the gentleness of the late President, and yet let 
me say that in this respect the very courage 



with which he resists opponents wherever they 
present themselves, we commended five years 
ago as the highest virtue of Andrew Johnson's 
life. 

What is the reason given for these personal 
allusions? Wendell Phillips has arraigned and 
abused the President in a shameless manner ; 
but he is in the habit of doing that in regard to 
almost^every one. He recently classed him 
with Arnold and Burr. He said he had taken 
Jeff Davis's place as leader of the confederacy, 
and threatened impeachment. This world will 
never be good enough for him. My friend from 
Massachusetts, before the magnificent oration 
he gave us covering the whole ground of our 
difficulties, let drop an expression about ' 'white- 
washing" in debate in December last that I 
have no doubt has greatly wounded and irri- 
tated the mind of the President. He regards 
it rather in the light of a personal afl:ront, 
though I do not believe it was so intended. 

In regard to Mr. Stevens, the other gentle- 
man named by him, we cannot judge fairly with- 
out recallingto mind the fact that Mr. Stevens 
pi-oclaimed Andrew Johnson to be an alien 
enemy, a citizen of-a foreign State, in the con- 
vention that nominated him as Vice President 
of the United States, and therefore not now 
legally President. We must not forget that he 
has shown violent and bitter feeling at various 
times, and that he wields great influence, and 
in such a way as to exasperate even a patient 
man. I know him well — a man of greatnntel- 
lect, with a controlling will, and possessing the 
dangerous power of keen sarcasm, which he 
wields against friend and foe, cutting like a 
Damascus blade. In a recent debate he made 
use ofan expression that would irritate any man, 
especially when coming from a leader in the 
House of Representatives. He said of the Pres- 
ident that his conversation with a certain ''dis- 
tinguished Senator" was 

"In violation of the privileges of this House, made 
in such a way that centuries ago, haditbeen made in 
Parliament by a British king, it would have cost him 
his head." 

I ask you, Senators, whether the Presidentof 
the United States, regarding him as he is ; a 
man who never turned his back upon a foe, per- 
sonal or political ; a man whose great virtue has 
been his combative propensit}'; as a man who 
repellec^ insults here on the very spot where 
I now stand, when they came from traitoi's 
arming themselves for the fight ; can you ask 
him, because he is President, to submit to in- 
sult? Every sentiment of manhood, every dic- 
tate 01 our nature, would induce a man, when 
he heard these words uttered, in the heat of 
passion, to thrust them back. When a man 
becomes President he has none the less the 
feelings of manhood. Whether a peasant or a 
President, he is a man for a' that. He can 
never overcome tliat feeling, and therefore I 
say, Senators, when we are examining the 



14 



present condition of affairs, although I con- 
demn the time and manner of repelling these 
insults as strongly as one can, yet that con- 
demnation must be jjalliated by the circum- 
stances by which he was surrounded, by our 
knowledge of his character, by the fact that he 
believed he was repelling personal insult thrust 
upon him by high officers of the Government, 
or by a gentleman like Wendell Phillips, who 
controls great masses of public opinion, and 
we are bound to give him the charity of this 
explanation. 

There is another portion of this speech which 
I think is even still more indefensible than any- 
thing I have referred to ; and that is that clause 
which I will not read to the Senate, in which 
he charges that these men are endeavoring to 
incite his assassination. No charge can be more 
idle, no accusation can be more unfounded ; 
and I am astonished to the last degree that such 
an idea should ever enter the mind of the Pres- 
ident of the United States that these gentlemen 
were conspiring his assassination! I have seen 
many papers printed on both sides of the ques- 
tion, by Democrats and Union men, and I 
never have seen one that appi'oves this accusa- 
tion. I have received many letters pro and con 
on this subject since this thing occurred, and 
I have never yet seen an intimation but what 
this charge was most unfounded. Sir, it is not 
in the ranks of the Union party the President 
will find assassins. They are bred only by a 
differSnt school of politics. The men who have 
done so much to save this country from anarchy 
will not play the part of assassins. He need 
not guard against them ; and this accusation 
seems to me rather the product of resentment, 
hatched by anger and passion, and hurled with- 
out reflection at those he believed wished to 
badger and insult him. 

But, sir, throwing aside these personal al- 
lusions and these irritating remarks, what is 
there left of the speech ? Cast over the remarks 
that I have referred to 'the mantle of charity, 
and what is there in the speech with which we 
can find fault? There may be ideas and sen- 
timents which seem to be out of place ; we 
are not here to criticise the speech of the Pres- 
ident by the rules of grammar or syntax ; but 
there are ideas in his speech that are deserving 
the grave consideration of the Senate. In one 
clause of the speech he says in speakiilg of the 
spirit of his address and conduct to the south- 
ern people: 

" Coming in that spirit, Tsay to them, ' When you 
have complied with the requirements of the Consti- 
tution, when you have yielded to the law, when you 
have acknowledged your allegiance to the Constitu- 
tion, I will, so far as I can, open the door of the 
Union to those who had erred and strayed from the 
fold of their fathers for a time.' " 

Now read in connection with that another 
paragraph of the same speech : 

" When those who rebelled comply with the Con- 



stitution ; when they give sufBcient evidence of loy- 
alty ; when they show that they can be trusted; when 
they yield obedience to the law that you and I ac- 
knowledge obedience to, I say extend them the right 
hand of fellowship, and let peace and Union be re- 
stored." 

TENNESSEE. 

Other passages of this speech, and especially 
one or two in the veto message, show his ear- 
nest desire for the admission of Tennessee ; and 
I have no doubt that much of the excitement 
in the President's mind arose out of the long- 
delayed admission of Tennessee into this Union. 
That feeling crops out very strongly in the veto 
message, and I confess to you that I do sympa- 
thize very much with his feelings. What is the 
condition of Tennessee? It was reconstructed 
in the sense in which the term is now used be- 
fore the death of President Lincoln, under his 
guiding hand, with Andrew Johnson as his mere 
agent. It was reconstructed by Union men in 
the midst of war, and Tennessee aided us very 
much in the closing operations of this war. 
More than thirty thousand of her brave sons 
marched under the banner of I'homas and Sher- 
man. Its government was reorganized before 
President Johnson came here. -It was organ- 
ized by his own personal friends who shared his 
fortunes. The men that are sent here to rep- 
resent Tennessee are as true and loyal as either 
of you Senators, without exception. I have 
just had brought to me the recent letter of Mr. 
Maynard to the convention held on the 22d of 
February, and it breathes the very spirit of pa- 
triotism. There are Stokes and many others of 
these gentlemen who have served the cause of 
their country. Now I say to you that there is 
a feeling in the public mind that Tennessee ought 
to be admitted into the Union, and as soon as 
possible ; that she has complied with every con- 
dition imposed upon her ; that she has organized 
civil society so far as it can be ; and I think it 
is the common feeling and desire of the people 
of the United States, whom we represent, the 
mass of the Union people, that she should be 
admitted as soon as possible. One year ago 
she was declared by the President not to be 
in insurrection ; and I do think our first duty 
is at once to prepare a mode and manner by 
which she maybe admitted into the Union upon 
such terms and conditions as will make her 
way back the way of pleasantness and peace. 
And, sir, I would follow the marked exception 
in the case of Tennessee by an encouraging plan 
for the admission of Arkansas and such other 
States as may be reconstructed on a loyal basis. 

NO PLAN OF RECONSTRUCTION BY CONGRESS. 

The weakness of the position of Congress 
now is not that any one denies yourj^ower, but 
that you hold no lanterns to them, no light, no 
plan, no mode by which they can get back into 
the folds of the Union. I say therefore, if the 
committee on reconstruction can report a joint 
resolution ( instead of this asserting their power) 



15 



fixing the mode and manner by which Tennes-. 
see and other States may come back into the 
Union, by which their loyal sons maybe repre- 
sented upon this floor, I believe it will meet the 
hearty plaudit of the American people. I do 
not wish to go into the general question still 
before the committee on reconstruction ; but if 
I had any power in arranging a plan, I would 
mark the line as broad and deep between the 
loyal people who stqod at our side and the rebels 
who fought against us as between heaven and 
hell. 

Mr. HOWARD. How can you do it ? 

Mr. SHERMAN. Whenever loyal men pre- 
sent a State organization, complying with such 
terms and conditions and tests of loyalty as 
you may prescribe, and will send here loyal 
repi'esentatives, I would admit them ; and when- 
ever rebels send or come here I would reject 
them. The President in his veto message, to 
which I intend to refer presently, states this 
point as strongly and as well as I can make it, 
and I will read it in reply to the honorable 
Senator : 

" I hold it my duty to recommend to you, in the 
interests of peace and in the interests of Union, the 
admission of every State to its share in public legis- 
lation, when, however insubordinate, insurgent, or 
rebellious its people may have been, it presents itself 
not only in an attitude of loyalty and harmony, but 
in the persons of representatives whose loyalty can- 
not be questioned under any existing constitutional 
or legal test." 

Define loyalty in your own terms ; show that 
yoit have at least a generous appreciation of 
the position of these men ; prescribe what you 
call a loyal man, if you choose; and then when 
these loyal men send here loyal men who can 
be tested by your oath or by any other mode 
or manner you choose to {prescribe, let them 
come, in the name of God and humanity, and 
share our councils as they have shared our 
hearts ; and I believe it is the- irritation occa- 
sioned by this delay that has caused much of 
the excitement in the mind of the President. 

You may say that the President's idea of 
loyalty is not yours, and you may differ upon 
that. Why do you not define your idea of loy- 
alty, and send it to him, and if it meets his 
approval, well? If not, then he makes an issue 
with Congress, and then you can fight it out ; 
but until then you cannot. 

VETO MESSAGE. 

Now, Mr. President, I come to the veto mes- 
sage. It is well known that I not only voted 
for the freedraen's bill, but I voted for it against 
the President's veto. I would vote for it over 
andoveragain. I considered it carefully ; I find 
nothing in it but what I can approve : and I 
am surprised that any one who is willing to 
support the present Freedraen's Bureau is not 
willing to vote for this modification of it ; but I 
do not wish to discuss at any length its merits. 
The honorable Senator from Illinois, in an elab- 



orate and very able speech, has exhausted the 
whole subject. I am willing to let the veto of 
the President, with the answer of the Senator 
from Illinois, go to the people of the country, 
and upon that I am willing to defend my vote 
at any time and at all times. But what then ? 
The President of the United States has consti- 
tutional powers and rights ; he has the same duty 
imposed upon him to vote for or against that 
bill that rests upon any of us. 

The Constitution declares that every bill shall 
be submitted for his approval or disapproval. 
If he does not approve it he sends it back, and 
it is nothing more nor less than a vote by him of 
"no" against the passage of that bill. H^ sends 
it back with his reasons. Suppose those rea- 
sons are not sufficient. That is a question that 
he must judge as well as you. He alleges that 
this bill is unnecessary, and I must confess that 
a recent construction put upon the bill through 
General Howard very much takes away from 
the immediate necessity for its passage. I sup- 
posed myself that the original Freedmen's Bu- 
reau bill expired bj^ its own limitation in JMay, 
1866, because I sujjposed that the President 
considered the rebellion as over in May last. 
He certainly did as to Tennessee. I supposed 
that the year of the duration of that bill after 
the war would commence, say some time in 
May, I860, and therefore there was immediate 
necessity to supply some temporary act by which 
the freedmen in the southern States should be 
protected. It seems that in that we mistook 
the construction of the President, and I have 
here before me the order recently issued by 
General Howard, in which he says that — 

" The President has assured the Commissioner that 
he regards the present law as continuing the exist- 
ence of the bureau at least a year from this time." 

That is, as no pi'oclamation has been issued 
fixing the termination of the rebellion, imtil 
one year after that proclamation the present 
Freedmen's Bureau continlfes. If so, we have 
all the benefit of that system under the care 
of the most excellent manager of it now for 
one year for the protection of the freedmen. 
There are but very few powers conferred in the 
second bill that are not included in the first. 
There are three sections of the second bill that 
I think ought to be passed in the form of a law. 
One provides for the poor negroes on the plan- 
tations set apart by General Sherman for them. 
It did seem to me that it was but reasonable 
and right for us to secure to them a military 
possession for a short period of time. They 
came into possession of that property lawfully 
under myitary rule ; they were placed upon it 
when it was abandoned by its owners, and when 
its owners were fighting this Government. Their 
title was legal, their possession was legal ; and 
I say there was nothing but a reasonable coft- 
dition that you should not turn them out with- 
ouLat least two years' preparation. I could 
see no objection to that, it is true the expensfe 



16 



of a Freedmen' s Bureau may be large ; but how 
can we help that? We have ourselves, in pur- 
suance of our policy, emancipated the slaves; 
and whether it costs much or little, we are bound 
•to ease their way from a condition of servitude 
to a condition of assured freedom. T tell you 
the people of Ohio do 'not care as to that. 
Whatever is necessary to be expended for this 
great purpose they are willing to pay their 
share. While they are reasonably economical 
in all questions, yet when it comes to the ques- 
tion of taking care of a race of people whom 
we ourselves have emancipated, they are will- 
ing to bear their share of the burden. 

The sixth section of the bill, I must confess, 
seemed to me rather arbitrary ; I refer to the 
power given to the President to buy lands at 
. pleasure and without limit. I was disposed to 
vote to strike that out; but as the whole sys- 
tem was a temporary one, I did not believe the 
power would be abused by General Howard, 
and 1 trusted the President. I was willing to 
vote for it with that clause in -, but that is neither 
here nor there. He had the right to veto it. 
What he says about taxation without represen- 
tation I look upon very much like a stump 
speech that had no pertinency to the veto. That 
we have the power to legislate for the southern 
States is admitted by the President himself 
In all the proclamations to which I have re- 
ferred he by terms extends the Treasury laws 
over the southern States. He has admitted 
over and over again our power to legislate for 
these States by approving and indorsing and 
ratifying laws wo have sent to him ; and there- 
fore all he said about taxation 1_ look upon 
merely as one of those make-weights in an 
argument that with the people would not have 
any material influence. If he meant by that 
part of his veto message simply to say that as 
a general principle of American constitutional 
law every people who are affected by laws 
passed by Congr^ should be represented, I 
say that is right ; but there are exceptions to 
that as there are to every other rule. We 
legislate for the people of this District and they 
do not vote and cannot have the right to vote. 
We will not even let them be heard here. 
YV^e legislate for the Territories and do not give 
them the right to vote. We legislate for for- 
eigners, who are not represented here, except 
indirectly, and who have no political power. 
We legislate for the women and children of our 
country, who have no vote. Wc legislate for 
a great many people who do not vote. They 
are all inferentially represented, but not di- 
rectly represented by members of their own 
choice. Therefore i regard this part of the 
veto message simply surplusage not to be con- 
sidered ; bub whether it is considered or not J 
afti willing to stand by that bill ; and let me 
say, sir, that if any President of the United 
States, I do not care -whether it is Andrew 
Johnson or his successor, shall fail or neglect 



to protect from lawless violence the men who 
have been freed by this Government in the oper- 
ations of war, that man will be cursed forever 
and forever. Our obligation to protect them 
is even more sacred than to protect the white 
people. My Democratic friends may think 
that is a very strong expression, but the reason 
is this : the white people can take care of them- 
selves ; they have been trained for generations 
as freemen ; they will dtifend and maintain 
their rights; you cannot hold them in slavery. 
All the powers of hell could not keep in sla- 
very the American people who have once tasted 
the sweets^of freedom. 

But it is different with the freed people of 
the southern States. They are very poor, help- 
less, dependent upon our bounty and our pro- 
tection, and are there in the presence of their 
masters who hate them because they have lost 
their services. We dare not trust their protec- 
tion to the white people of the southern States, 
because we know the instinctive prejudices that 
govern and control in the southern States. I 
believe, and I will take the President at his 
word when he tells me, that his earnest desire 
is to protect them in all their rights. In the 
very veto message in which he sends back the 
measure we sent him, he tells us in most une- 
quivocal terms — 

"I share with Congress the strongest desire to se- 
cure to the freedmen the full enjoyment of their free- 
dom and property, and their en tire independence and 
equality in making contracts for their labor." 

Then he goes on and states his objections to 
the bill. While he stands by that declaration, 
while he protects the freed peopl(?of the south- 
ern States, I will not quarrel with him about 
the means. Let him fail to do that, and I will 
denounce him as freely and as bitterly as any 
Senator on this floor. 

WHAT THE UNION PARTY DEMANDS OF THE PRESIDENT. 

Mr. President, I feel that I have already 
detained the Senate too long, but there are 
some other observations which I shall take this 
occasion to make so that 1 may not hereafter 
feel called upon to trouble the Senate on these 
various questions of reconstruction. In my 
judgment, the Union party of the United States, 
whose representatives we are, demand both of 
the President and of Congress grave and im- 
portant duties. I do not think either of us 
can avoid the fair performance of these duties 
by any excuse or equivocation. What they 
demand of the President, who accepted the 
nomination of the Union party, and who is the 
agent and representative of thie Union party, 
and who is bound in honor to carry out its 
principles, is a faithful observance of the prin- 
ciples upon which he was elected. I look upon 
the common declaration either of a President 
or a member of Congress that he is the repre- 
sentative of the whole people, and is not under 
any obligation to the men who elected him, as 



17 



as false iu honor and false in principle. The 
President, it is true, is President of the United 
States, but he is the chosen representative of 
the Union party of the United States, and he 
is under obligations to that party which he can- 
not in honor dejjlkrt from. Now, sir, a debt of 
honor Is even of higher obligation than a debt 
which can be enforced in a court of law, sim- 
ply because it rests upon honor alone. No 
debt can be of higher honor than that which 
the representative owes to the constituents who 
elected him. I think therefore that wo have a 
right to expect that the President of the Uni- 
ted States shall fulfill his promise upon which 
he was elected, that he would do all he could 
to make treason odious and to punish traitors. 
There is a growing feeling in the public mind 
that he is forgetting this cardinal principle of 
his early proclaimed policy. We have a right 
to expect that in the various departments and 
agencies of this Government he shall exercise 
the power intrusted to him through those men 
who aided and contributed to his election. He 
is bound as a principle of honor to select 
as the agents of the Government those who 
shared with him the political feeling that gave 
rise to his election. They are numerous enough 
to form the foundation of any Administration. 
And if he seeks fellowship, counsel, aid, or 
association from or with those who either took 
up arms in the recent contest, or who, regard- 
ing the war a failure, would have passively 
yielded to rebels, he commits that offense from 
which no man occupying his high position can 
or will recover. Tolerance of opinion within 
a political party is indispensable and choice of 
agents within it is a necessity, but it must be 
a grave exigency that will justify a betrayal of 
those by and through whom we obtain trust 
and power. 

The Union party, in my judgment, is the 
most powerful political organization that has 
ever controlled the Government of this coun- 
try. During the last fall it carried every one 
of the so-called northern States — ^'northern no 
more, I hope. The Legislatures of all those 
States are in a harmony with the Union party. 
Nine out of ten of the soldiers who carried 
our flag are adherents of the Union party, and 
sustained us at the election as they did in the 
field of battle. The great body of the officers 
who led the soldiers through all the perils of 
war are of the same feeling. The great Union 
party is a sound, conservative, healthy polit- 
ical organization, demanding only of its agents 
what is reasonable and right. 1 think its mem- 
bers demand, and have a right to demand, of 
Mr. Johnson a strict, earnest, faithful adher- 
ence to the principles which led to his selec- 
tion as a candidate for the Vice Presidency, 
and placed him side by side with the lament- 
ed Lincoln ; and they demand of him trust 
and confidence in those who placed him in 
pov/er. 



WHAT IT DEMANDS OP CONGRESS. 

And, sir, this party demands of Congress 
some things, also. It demands of Congress a 
prompt restoration of some of the rebel States, 
or at least a prompt plan of restoration of the 
rebel States. If on account of their present 
condition any of these States cannot yet come 
into the Union ; if because they are still rebel- 
lious, or will not in spite of our laws select men 
who have not stained their hands with the 
blood of our countrymen, let them stay out. 
While the State of Georgia or any other State 
of the South can find no citizen within her 
bosom to represent her except those who, 
more almost than all others, are responsible 
for the blood that has been shed in the recent 
war, I will never vote for the admission of its 
Representatives or Senators. They must first 
show by their conduct an obedience to the law. 
Among the laws that stood on the statute-book 
when they were the force to which they ap- 
pealed was that law which prescribed a test 
oath ; and I^ for one, will never j-ield that test 
oath to enable any man whose hand is stained 
with the blood of my fellow-countrymen to take 
a seat on the floor of the Senate. 

But, sir, I am desirous to see some mode by 
which loyal men from the southern States, in 
States that are organized on a secure and safe 
basis, may be promptly admitted on this floor. 
The people of the United States demand of 
Congi-esssome such plan and that right speedily, 
and they demand a change of the basis of rep- 
resentation. By the provisions of the Consti- 
tution of the United States there are four mil- 
lion people of the southern States who, denied 
all political rights, will still be represented in 
Congress, and the strange anomaly will pre- 
sent itself of these rebel States, who have done 
all they could to overthrow the Government, 
coming back here with increased political 
power. I think that our constituents v/ill 
demand of us that before they are admitted 
we shall have at least adopted a plan by which 
the basis of representation may be put upon a 
secure and safe footing. 

Let us take some cases disclosed by the cen- 
sus tables and let us make a momentary com- 
parison. The State of Alabama has a total 
population of 964,201 ; she is entitled upon the 
basis of representation to seven Representa- 
tives ; but the State of Alabama has only 435,080 
white people who exercise any political power. 
The State of Wisconsin has a population of 
774,710, or nearly twice as many white people 
as the State of Alabama, and yet unless you 
change the basis of representation, Alabama 
will come back here with seven Representatives 
while Wisconsin has but six. So with Virginia 
and Illinois. Virginia has a total population 
of 1,596,318, and a white population of only 
1,047,411, while Illinois has a white population 
of 1,704,-323, or nearly twice as many as the 
State of Virginia; and yet unless there is some 



18 



change in the Const itntion, Virginia will come 
back with twelve Representatives while Illinois 
has but thirteen. I might go through the list. 
This is a condition of inequality to which our 
people will not submit now when they have the 
power to remedy it. 

The honorable Senator from Pennsylvania 
[Mr. BucKALEw] the other day in a very ably 
prepared argument demonstrated, as I think,' 
very clearly that the inequality of representation 
in the Senate is even still more marked than 
this ; but he must remember that that inequal- 
ity is beyond the power of recall ; that no change 
can be made in that respect except either by 
revolution or by a national convention. Be- 
sides, this inequality of representation in the 
Senate does not really amount to very much, 
for the reason that the small States are mainly 
distributed side by side with the large States, 
and they have a community of interest with the 
large States. I have myself watched the vote 
upon the various propositions to see whether 
this inequality of representation of States in the 
Senate has operated hard, and I find almost 
always the large and small States mix and min- 
gle in their votes. It very rarely makes any 
difference, as whenever the popular majority 
carries the House of Representatives that same 
popular majority carries the Senate. This in- 
equality, while it cannot be changed, really does 
but little harm. The only section of which 
any complaint can fairly be made is New Eng- 
land, where a group of six small States stand 
together, and sometimes have peculiar inter- 
ests of which they are very tenacious ; but 
the West rapidly growing into giant power, 
strengthened by new States every year, and 
where there is a community of interests of great 
Statea and small States — the great West can 
soon hold New England in check whenever 
she unduly avails herself of her unequal polit- 
ical power here. 

THE BASIS OP EEPRESENTATION— V(3TERS. 

Mr. President, the real question of difficulty 
is how this change in the basis of representa- 
tion shall occur. The committee of fifteen have 
reported a plan that I shall probably vote for, 
but I must express my preference for another. I 
do it now, so that I shall not take up the time of 
the Senate hereafter. In my judgment the true 
basis of representation in this country is voters. 
1 know this was discussed in the other House, 
and I have read the debate there, but the result 
was not satisfactory tome. All the objections 
that have been made to that system were ob- 
.jections that might be easily obviated and easily 
answered. Suppose the basis of representa- 
tion was the very one suggested by Andrew 
Johnson, that all men above the age of twenty- 
one years, citizens of the United States, who 
by the laws of the respective States are entitled 
t to vote shall be the basis of representation. 
What then ? What is the objection to that plan ? 



It is simple, uniform, applying to all sections 
without any appearance of legislating against 
a particular interest or a particular section. It 
is fair, manly, and honorable. The true basis 
of representation are men whQ cast the votes. 
All the others who stand outsiae of this circle 
are voted for by the voters and are represented 
by the voters. 

But one of the objections made to this plan 
is that in the border States by their laws they 
exclude a large portion of their population from 
voting on the ground of disloyalty, having taken 
share in the rebellion. Suppose they do; sup- 
pose Maryland has excluded one third of her 
population because they were rebels, ought the 
loyal men of Maryland to vote for those rebels? 
Whether they are excluded on acccount of color 
or crime they are equally to be excluded from 
the basis of representation, and this argument, 
which applied only to a narrow interest and of 
a temporary character which will soon disap- 
pear by the march of events, is now made to 
stand in the way of a just and fair basis of rep- 
resentation. So it is said that in the State of 
New York where there is a large preponderance 
of foreigners, the State of New York will lose, 
because foreigners not being voters will not be 
counted. Suppose it is, would not that be right ? 
Foreigners are not citizens, but may become 
such. They pass through a pupilage and then 
are citizens and maybe counted. Because they 
happen to have the most of them in New York, 
is that a reason why they should be included 
in the basis of representation?. The States 
ought not to look upon this question as it af- 
fects their own particular interests for the time, 
but as a question of equality, of right, and of 
justice in the Electoral College and the House 
of Representatives. 

So of New England. It is said that New 
England will lose something because she has a 
great number of beautiful women and children 
more than she has men. That is true; but I 
ask you, Mr. President, yourself a distinguished 
representative from New England, where the 
men are who represent these women? They 
are the best blood of your country who go west- 
ward and there soon give tone to society, and 
come back here to represent themselves and 
the mothers and sisters and kindred they left 
behind. New England is at this moment not 
only represented by her twelve Senators, but 
by six or eight more who are sons of New Eng- 
land who moved to the West and carried with 
them their religion , their principles, and in some 
cases their wives, or where they did not we pro- 
vided wives for them. They came back here 
as Senators, and now stand here to vote New 
England ideas and New England principles. 
Suppose New England should lose a member 
or two because the young men have gone West, 
are her women and children unrepresented ? 
No, sir, they are represented by men from every 
State in the Union. 



19 



I say, therefore, that this rule, proposed first 
I believe by Professor Leiber, is in my judgment 
the fairest basis of representation. That a 
change of the basis is demanded there can be 
no doubt. This in my opinion is the best prop- 
osition, but I do not profess to be among the 
impracticables, and if I cannot get what Iwant 
I am willing to take that proposition which was 
reported from the committee of fifteen, which 
does at least take away that singular feature by 
which the South would gain representation by 
the rebellion. 

UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE. 

Sir, pei'haps I ought not to say anything 
further in regard to a proposition made by the 
Senator from Missouri, [Mi-. Henderson,] so 
eloquently and ably defended and maintained 
in a long and elaborate oration by the Senator 
from Massachusetts, that we ought now to start 
de novo, to go back to first principles and base 
representation on population, and take away 
from the States the jjower to fix the qualifica- 
tion of voters, and proclaim that nobody should 
be excluded from voting on account of color, 
[t has always seemed to me best to attempt 
that which is attainable ; and when I say to you 
that no man can really believe that we can keep 
these States out from representation here until 
we can educate the people of the United States 
up to a change of their Constitution so as to 
compel any State to adopt negro suffrage, it is 
a proposition so clear that I need scarcely dis- 
cuss it. 

If we propose to exclude those eleven States 
from the Union until we can compel three 
fourths of all the States to vote for negro suf- 
frage, then these eleven States will be a Hun- 
gary, a Poland, an Ireland, to be ruled over by 
the military rod for years to come. You may 
depend upon it the people of the United States 
will not acquiesce in that demand. They will 
not waste their energies and their money in 
enforcing so impossible a proposition. There- 
fore, without going into its merits, I say it is 
simply proposing that which we cannot adopt. 

I beg Senators not to let the protection that 
is due to the negroes of the southern States 
depend upon the narrow foundation of a con- 
gressional enactment. Suppose you were to 
pass the law proposed by the Senator from 
Massachusetts, how long would it remain on the 
statute-book, in the mutations of parties in this 
country, where nothing is more unstable than 
party power, especially where no^reat princi- 
ples are immediately at stake? How long 
would it be before a dominant majority in Con- 
gress would repeal your law, and then you would 
have wasted all your power to change the basis 
of representation and to protect the freedmen 
of the southern States? What I desire now is 
to secure a just and fair basis of representation 
BO that the South may have a reasonable share 
of political power, no more, no less. Then 
after their representatives have been tried 



by the tests of loyalty that you may prescribe 
— let them be reasonable, moderate, kind, for- 
bearing — then I hope to see these States come 
back into their old places in the Union, shorn of 
their treason, shorn of their power ; equal with 
us, no better, no worse ; white men and white 
women and white children, on the same foot- 
ing, side by side, acting in harmony with each 
other in adopting legislation for the good of our 
great country. 

LET us BE MODERATE. 

Such is my view of the subject, and although 
I shall probably take no part in the debate upon 
it, but will vote for almost any basis of repre- 
sentation that changes the present one, 1 do 
^ay it is the duty of Congress to adopt some 
mode by which the basis of representation may 
be put upon a safe foundation. Sir, the peo- 
ple of the United States now demand of us wis- 
dom and moderation. This is not the time for 
extreme counsels. It is not the time to attempt 
great reforms and works. We have just gone 
through a terrible war, with an overwhelming 
debt staring us in the face. We have to tax 
our people to a greater extent than they have 
ever been taxed before. We have complicated 
political relations growing out of the condition 
of the southern States. Do the best we can, 
we shall have trouble and contention and strife. 
We know that lawlessness and crime are spread- 
ing with giant footsteps all over the southern 
States. We know that the race that we have 
redeemed from bondage is now held in fierce 
terror all over the South. We know that we 
owe them protection, and we are bound to pro- 
tect ourselves against undue power of traitors 
in the southern States. We have to guard our 
councils against the machinations of traitors 
here and elsewhere. 

I say now is no time to quarrel with the Chief 
Magistrate of the United States, unless we are 
compelled to do so by his base betrayal of the 
obligations he imposed upon himself when ho 
became our candidate. It is a time for moder- 
ation and for wisdom. Sir, I would not plead 
for it, but I believe it is absolutely necessary, 
not only for our existence as a party, but for our 
existence as a nation. I fear the storm. 1 fear 
struggles and contentions in these eleven States, 
unless there is some mode by which the local 
power of those States may l^e put in loyal hands, 
and by which their voices may be heard here 
in council and in command, in deliberation and 
debate as of old. They will come back here 
shorn of their undue political power, humbled 
in their pride, with a consciousness that one 
man bred under free institutions is as good at 
least as a man bred under slave institutions. J. 
want to see the loyal people in the South, if they 
are few, trusted; if they are many, give them 
power. Prescribe your conditions; but let 
them come back into the Union upon such 
terms as you may prescribe. Open the door 
for them. I hope to see some great spectacle 



20 



of punishment, some grand tribunal erected to 
try, not merely Jefferson Davis, but in his per- 
son to try the rebellion, to condemn it before 
the civilized world ; the sentence to be recorded 
in the pages of history, not as the sentence of 
death merely against "an old man broken with 
the storms of state," but as the ignominious 
sentence of a free people against the worst re- 
bellion ever inflicted on mankind. But that 
over, I do hope that without more bloodshed, 
of which we have had enough, we may see har- 
mony restored in this great Union of ours ; that 
all these States and all these territories may 
be here in council for the common good, and 
that at as speedy a moment as is consistent 
with the public safety. 

OHIO AND INDIANA. 

Before I conclude, allow me to read two sets 
of resolutions framed since we have been en- 
gaged in this debate, and which receive my 
hearty approval : one passed by the Union party 
of the State of Indiana, and the pther reported 
to the Union members of the Legislature of 
Ohio, and which, I believe, will receive their 
sanction. The Indiana Union convention 
passed the following resolutions : 

"Resolved, That it is the province of the legislative 
branch of the Government to determine the question 
of reconstruction, and in the exercise of that power 
Congress should have in view the loyalty of the peo- 
ple of those States, and their devotion to the Consti- 
tution and obedience to the laws. Until the people 
of these States prove themselves loyal to the Govern- 
ment they should notbe restored to the rights enjoyed 
before the rebellion. 

"Resolved, That no man who voluntarily partici- 
pated in the rebellion ought to be admitted to a seat 
in Congress, and under the Constitution of the Uni- 
ted States the power to determine the ciualifications 
requisite of electors rests with the States respect- 
ively. 

"Resolved, That the Union of these States has not 
and cannot be dissolved except by successful revolu- 
tion." 

I now present and read kindred resolutions 
reported to the Union members of the Ohio 
Legislature recently by a committee of their 
own number : 

"Resolved, That the President, Andrew Johnson, in 
demanding of the revolted States the repeal of their 
ordinances of secession, the repudiation of their rebel 
war debts, and the adoption of the amendment of the 
Constitution abolishing slavery before he would with- 
draw the military control of the provisional govern- 
ments, wisely inaugurated the necessary measures of 
reconstruction, that can only be completed by Con- 
gress and the States by the adoption of a further con- 
stitutional amendment apportioning representation 
in Congress among the States according to the num- 
bers of those classes thereof who, by the laws of such 
States, have a voice in such representation ; and that 
while the safety of the nation and justice to all its 
parts require that these States should be admitted 
only with such representation, we deem it inexpedient 
and unnecessary to press upon them other conditions 



to a full restoration to their place and rights in the 
Union. 

" Resolved, That we deem it the duty of Congress to 
provide by just and prudent but effective legislation 
for the protection of the freedmen. 

"Resolved, That we respectfully and earnestly urge 
upon Congress and the President to waive extreme 
opinions, and that in the discharge of the great trust 
confided to them by the nation they harmoniously 
provide for us the ways of future concord and the 
moderate but effectual measures of a lasting recon- 
struction." 

I will also read from a private letter which I 
have received from a distinguished citizen of my 
State, expressing an opinion in which I heartily 
concur: 

" Our party is now in the hour of its trial, and it 
needs to gain strength by prudence rather than prod- 
igally wasted by the very extravagance of rashness. 
We can never maintain ourselves against the Presi- 
dent or anybody else upon a policy of indefinite and 
unconditional exclusion of the southern States, es- 
tablishing a Ilungary or Poland in the midst of the 
Republic. We must rather, in my judgment, offer 
immediate admission to the rebel States upon terms 
clear, distinct, and announced, and show to our people 
that it is not revenge but safety that wo want." 



I have thus, Mr. President, endeavored to 
show that to this hour no act has been done by 
the President inconsistent with his obligations 
to the great Union party that elected him. 

Differences have arisen, but they have arisen 
upon new questions, not within the contempla- 
tion of either the Union partj^ or the Union 
people Avhen the President was nominated. I 
have also shown that he has acted in jjursuance 
of a policy adopted by Mr. Lincoln, and ap- 
proved by the people, and that no event has 
yet transpired that will preclude him from a 
"hearty cooperation with the great mass of the 
Union party in securing to the country the ob- 
ject for which we conducted successfully a great 
war. That events have transpired, that utter- 
ances have been made tending in that direction, 
no one will deny. The surest evidence is in the 
joy of the woi'st enemies of the country over 
our divisions. 

I find in a recent paper this significant para- 
graph : 

Democratic Demonstration at Dayton. 

Dayton, Ohio, February 20. 
The Democracy of Dayton had a jollification over 
President Johnson's veto of the Freedmen's Bureau 
bill this afternoon, firing one hundred guns. Mr. 
Vallandigham made a brief speech, saying the De- 
mocracy did not elect President Johnson, but it is 
now their duty to stand by him. He announced a 
mass meeting in future for exultation. A flag floats 
from Mr. Vallandigham 's window. 

Mr. CRESWELL. May I ask what kind of 
a flag? 

Mr. SHERMAN. I do not know ; a good 
flag in bad hands, I suppose. 



21 



Sir, I Cfin imagine no calamity more disgrace- 
ful than for us by our divisions to surrender, to 
men who to their country were enemies in war, 
any or all of the powers of this Government. 
He who contributes in any way to this result 
deserves the execrations of his countrymen. 
This may be done by thrusting upon the Presi- 
dent new issues on which the well-known prin- 
ciples of his life do not agree with the judgment 
of his political associates. It may be done by 
irritating controversies of a personal character. 
It may be done by the President turning his 
back upon those who trusted him with high 
power, and thus linking his name with one of 
the most disgraceful in American history, that 
of John Tyler. I feel an abiding confidence 
that Andrew Johnson will not and cannot do 
this ; and, sir, v/ho will deny that the overbear- 
ing and intolerant will of Henry Clay contrib- 
uted very much to the defection of John Tyler? 
But the division of the Whig party was an event 
utterly insignificant in comparison with the evil 
results of a division in the Union party. Where 
will be the four million slaves whom by your 
policy you have emancipated ? What would be 
their miserable fate if now surrendered to the 
custody of the rebels of the South ? Will you, 
by your demand of universal suffrage, destroy 
the power of the Union party to protect them 
in their dearly purchased liberty ? Will you, by 
new issues upon which you know you have not 
the voice of the people, jeopard these rights 
which you can by tlie aid of the Union pai-ty 
secure to these freedmen ? We know that the 
President cannot, will not, and ijever agreed to, 
unite with us upon the issues of universal suf- 
frage and dead States. No such dogmas were 
contemplated, when, for his heroic services in 
the cause of the Union, we placed him side by 
side with Mr. Lincoln as our standard-bearer. 
Why, then, present these issues? Why decide 
upon them? Why not complete the work so 
gloriously done by our soldiers by securing 
union and liberty to all men without distinc- 
tion of color, leaving to the States, as before, 
the question of suffrage. 

Sir, the curse of God, the maledictions of 
millions of our people, and the tears and blood 
of new-made freemen will, in my judgment, 
rest upon those who now for any cause destroy 
the unity of the great party that has led us 
through the wilderness of war. We want now 
peace and repose. We must now look to our 
public credit. We have duties to perform to 
the business interests of the country in which 
we need the assistance of the President. We 
have every motive for harmony with him and 
with each other, and for a generous and manly 
trust in his patriotism. If ever the time shall 
come when I can no longer confide in his de- 
votion to the principles upon wl;ich he was 
elected, I will bid farewell to Andrew John- 
son with unaffected sorrow. I will remember 
when he stood in this very spot, five years ago, 



repelling with unexampled courage the assaults 
of traitors. He left in their hands wife, chil- 
dren, property, and home, and staked them all 
on the result. I will remember that when a 
retreating general would have left Nashville to 
its fate, that again, with heroic courage, he 
maintained his post. I will remember the 
fierce conflicts and trials through which he and 
his fellow-compatriots in East Tennessee main- 
tained our cause in the heart of the confed- 
eracy. I will remember the sti'uggles he had 
with the aristocratic element of Tennessee, 
never ashamed of his origin and never far from 
the hearts of the people. Sir, you must not 
sever the great Union party from this loyal ele- 
ment of the southern States. No new theories 
of possible Utopian good can compensate for 
the loss of such patriotism and devotion. Time, 
as he tells you in his message, is a great ele- 
ment of reform, and time is on your side. I 
remember the homely and encouraging words of 
a pioneer in the anti-slavery cause, an expelled 
Methodist preacher from the South, who told 
those who were behind him in his strong anti- 
slavery opinions, " Well, friends, I'll block up 
awhile ; we must all travel together. " So I say 
to all who doubt Andrew Johnson, or who wish 
to move more rapidly than he can, to block up 
awhile, to consolidate their great victory with 
the certainty that reason and tlie Almighty will 
continue their work. All wisdom will not die 
with us. The highest human wisdom is to do 
all the good you can, but not to sacrifice a pos- 
.sible good to attempt the impracticable. God 
knows that I do not urge harmony and concili- 
ation from any personal motive. The people 
of my native State have intrusted me with a 
position here extending four years beyond the 
termination of the President's term of office. 
He can grant me no favor. 

If I believed for a moment that he would seek 
an alliance with those who by either arms or 
counsel or even apathy were against their coun- 
try in the recent war, and will turn over to them 
the high powers intrusted to him by the Union 
party, then, sir, he is dishonored, and will re- 
ceive no assistance from me ; but I will not 
force him into that attitude. If he shall prove 
false to the declaration made by him in his veto 
message, that his strongest desire was to secure 
to the freedmen the full enjoyment of their 
freedom and property, then I will not quarrel 
with him as to the means used. And while, as 
he tells us in this same message, he only asks 
for States to be represented who are presented 
in an attitude of loyalty and harmony and in 
the persons of representatives whose loyalty 
cannot be questioned under any constitutional 
or legal test, surely we ought not to sej^arate 
from him until, at least, we prescribe a test of 
their lo3'alty upon which we are willing to stand. 
We have not done it yet. I will not try him 
by new creeds. I will not denounce him for 
hasty words uttered in repelling personal af- 



22 



fronts. I see him yet surrounded by tbe Cab- 
inet of Abraham Lincoln, pursuing hisf)olicy. 
No word from me shall drive him into political 
fellowship with those who, when he was one of 
the moral heroes of this war, denounced him, 
spit upon him, and despitefully used him. The 
association must be self- sought, and even then 
I will part with him in sorrow, but with the 
abiding hope that the same Almighty power 



that has guided us through the recent war will 
be with us still in our new difficulties until every 
State is restored to its full communion and fel- 
lowship, and until our nation, purified by war, 
will assume among the nations of the earth the 
grand position hoped for by Washington, Clay, 
Webster, Lincoln, and hundreds of thousands 
of unnamed heroes who gave up their lives for 
its glory. 



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